


To Perish Twice

by amusewithaview



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Alternate Universe, Crossover, Mental Breakdown, extreme creepiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-11
Updated: 2011-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-22 12:38:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amusewithaview/pseuds/amusewithaview
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dawn would die for love.  Dawn isn't actually dead.</p><p>OR: How I shoehorned Carol Danvers into the movieverse through crossover magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Perish Twice

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Title comes from Robert Frost's poem "Fire and Ice".
> 
> 2\. In this AU "Carol Danvers" is Joyce Summer's middle and maiden name, respectively.
> 
> 3\. This is a redux of another story of mine, "Marotte" replacing Batman with X-men.
> 
> 4\. Thank you to whoever nominated this story at the Sunnydale Memorial Awards!

She can't move and her head is fuzzy with...something.

"You shouldn't have tried to run," says a voice, sweet and feminine.

Something is playing with the ends of her hair, she can feel the tug at her scalp, and it makes her shiver because she knows _exactly_ who is touching her. Cloth moves over the skin of her belly, and she knows that her shirt is being lifted. She knows and she panics, breaths coming faster and muscles twitching even if they are not quite under her full control. Her head is swimming with something: drugs, or shock, she doesn't know.

"You wouldn't be _safe_ out there," the voice says, pain and anger laced in its tone.

There is a flash of cold against the skin of her stomach, then pain.

"You can be hurt, you know. You can _bleed_. You won't be safe _out there_ , not without me."

There is a fear rising in her, stronger than the pain and the shock - but it's not strong enough to overcome the drugs. She lies there on her bed, helpless and terrified and resigned because she knows that even if she _could_ speak, even if she could argue -

Carol still wouldn't stop.

...

Afterwards, when their voices are (mostly) gone from her head and their powers from her body, after she can look them in the eye again, after they stop _flinching_ , sometimes they come and talk to her about it. It has happened five times: Amara avoids her now, the experience phased Kurt about as much as rain does a duck, Kitty was awkward for a while, Jean - they've both agreed to never broach the subject, but Bobby... Bobby is the one who seems least afraid, _is_ least afraid, she knows (knows him more intimately than he/she/ _they_ ever wanted) and he wants to _talk_.

"It feels like you're pulling something," he tells her with a frown, trying to organize his words. "Like you're pulling my blood into you, only - only not quite." He shakes his head, frowning, "I don't really know how to put it into words." He smiles sheepishly at her blank expression, then hastens to reassure her, "It doesn't hurt. Not really. It's..." He shrugs again, and drops it.

Kitty eventually talks to her about it, Kurt too, both agree: it feels like something tugging on them.

Kurt says it feels like she's pulling at his soul.

No-one asks what it feels like from her end. No-one asks and she wouldn't tell, even if they did. It is the secret she guards closest, closer than her real name, closer than... almost as close as the Other. The secret that only the Professor knows, the one that Logan has guessed at. (Sometimes she's glad that he's gone now, to Canada for answers. But she wears his dog tags all the same.)

She doesn't argue with their perceptions on how it feels, she thinks it's better that they liken it to a pull.

They're pulled, but _she's_ the one who sinks. Like they're quicksand and she's already in up to her waist. Like she's falling into their skins. Like she's going to _become_ them if she holds on too long. And she knows that it's ridiculous, she knows that there is no sinking, no pulling, she knows that she won't _become them_ if she holds on too long. She knows exactly what 'too long' means and what 'too long' feels like.

It feels like -

...

 _She can't move, wrists bound and feet barely keeping her up. There is a hand on her face, achingly gentle, and a voice saying that this is the only way. Then there's pain and light and an explosion of feeling and she knows that she is not wanted, never wanted, never needed, a tool whose purpose has passed._

 _She drifts on the wind_

 _for daysweeksmonthsyears_

 _and then_

 _she lands on both feet and is caught. The system asks her name, she gives them her mother's (not really mother, not really real, but it felt like it was); the system finds her a place to stay, and she stays until she can't; the system finds her another place, and she stays until she won't; the system finds her a third place, and she stays because_ there is another. __

 _She meets a girl and the girl is_

 _the girl is one girl in the world (is the world) with a power that_

 _can't be controlled and she_ knows _the way she knows she is strong now, and that nothing can touch her unless she lets it, she knows that this girl_ needs her. _Needs her like Buffy needed Willow and Xander, like Spike needed Drusilla, and she molds herself around that need._

 _She is not Dawn anymore (except for where she is_

 _deep down, like Rogue is Marie is Anna) she's Carol and Carol is impervious, Carol can deal in absolutes because Carol is made of concrete. Carol meets Marie and befriends her, trades secrets and confidences and finds a_ reason _to be and to live, because Marie_ needs her. __

 _And then Marie decides to leave._

 _But she can't because she needs her_

 _she needs her and she is needed and she is nothing without her and she needsneedsneeds..._

 _Carol cracks, crumbling away in pieces that reveal Dawn. Dawn, who has been left behind. Dawn, who only has her bodybloodpowersKeyself to offer. Dawn, who isn't really real because she was made from people who don't exist, not here. Dawn doesn't matter, and Carol was a front, but Marie is real and Marie needs her and Dawn_ knows this. __

 _Even if Marie doesn't._

 _She slips something in her milk one night, the night before Marie wants to leave. Is excited to leave, even. She will wander the country and maybe even meet others like them (who could help us!) and she will come back for Carol when Carol is old enough to be aged out but in the meantime Carol will have to wait but she'll send postcards and_

 __God, _she thinks,_ was I ever so naive? __

 _Marie is sprawled on her bed, motionless but for small twitches and the rapid movement of her closed lids as her eyes move wildly beneath. Carol is firm, Carol knows exactly what needs to happen. Dawn is gentle, Dawn knows that sometimes what's best_ hurts. _At least at first._

 _She proves her point with a small knife (shallow cuts) and then -_

 _she curls up beside her friend, Marie (the only one who matters), presses her face against the other girl's pale neck, breathing against her skin-to-skin and goes to sleep._

 _She knows it's worked when she starts hearing Marie begging._

 _She knows because the drugs haven't worn off yet._

 _She knows because she can't just hear Marie crying, she can feel it, too._

 _The tears on her/their face feel like baptism._

...

She is in the truck and staring out the window at the scenery flashing by, and then at it slowing. She doesn't react until they've actually stopped, jolting suddenly as if waking up - then grabbing her bag and jumping out with the trucker. He's surly and quiet, but kind enough to pick up a teenager off the road and good enough to expect nothing for it.

That doesn't stop her voice from sounding petulant: "Ah thought you were gonna take me as far as Laughlin City."

He chuckles, "This _is_ Laughlin City."

 _This is a bar, and maybe one or two houses. This is_ not _a city._

The thought is not her own, so Rogue doesn't voice it. Instead, she shoulders her duffle, wraps her green coat a little more firmly about herself, and follows the man into the bar. She has nothing to fear. No-one can touch her and nothing can hurt her. Her skin is impervious now, and if she really needs to get away, she can fly.

 _See,_ says the voice, _you need me..._

Rogue doesn't disagree because she's not sure she's wrong.

...

It feels like falling into a whirlpool when he touches her, and Rogue has a frantic moment to be frightened at how _fast_ this is happening and how _much_ is being transferred and then the machine is powering up and her world is all pain.

 _Her_ world is pain. But there's another there, within her, who can take control.

Dawn is busy, though, with the newest addition to what she calls Marie's "menagerie."

The mindscape, built by both girls over the past several months, is a strange mix of California sunshine and Mississippi damp. There are small houses and larger shopping malls and a cemetery in the middle with two graves that no-one ever visits. Logan is wandering around here, somewhere - faded and fading more every day. Bobby, too - but he's only a shade now and his haunts are well-marked.

Erik looks about himself curiously.

Dawn glares at him, arms folded on her chest and blue eyes snapping with rage.

"I don't believe we've had the pleasure," he says with a charming smile.

"I've known you as long as Ma-Rogue has," she tells him testily.

He may be old, but Erik Lensherr has always been quick - one has to be, to keep up with a genius who also happens to be a telepath. "I did wonder, when Victor scratched at her, why she did not bleed... she doesn't even bruise," he says curiously.

Dawn smiles with pride, "I won't let Rogue be hurt. I gave my life for her to be safe - "

"Then perhaps she will survive."

"She might. You won't," the slim brunette says with a baring of teeth.

Erik does not linger even as a shadow and Logan's echo avoids her for weeks.

...

Rogue shivers at the feel of the Professor brushing against her mind, his version of 'knocking'. It always feels strange, having Dawn recede so rapidly to the corners of her head (soul? she doesn't like to think about it). Strange and a bit lonely, though she's only been there for a year. She may have fooled most of those at the school, but Logan at least realized that she'd been on the road a lot longer than a few paltry weeks.

 _Rogue, my office, please._

He is sitting behind his desk when she comes in, fingers steepled together and a frown on his face. She sits in the chair opposite him and doesn't flinch when he suddenly trains knife-sharp eyes on her.  He looks older now than he did a few weeks ago, and Rogue wonders if that wear and tear is due to what Magneto did to her, or what he realizes now that _she_ has done (was done to her).

"Rogue... I believe you owe me an apology."

"An apology, sir?" she asks, tone neutral.

"It is quite rude of you not to offer introductions..."

She is silent. She will make him say it. She nudges the back of her mind, though.

"May I please speak with Carol?"

It feels like sinking, even now. Rogue sinks back and lets Dawn flow up. Carol is gone, now. A flimsy mask easily discarded now that Dawn had healed some of her own cracks. Somehow this has been good for her, though neither of them talk of it (think of it).

The body doesn't change, but suddenly instead of sitting she's sprawled and her serious expression is replaced by mischief. "Hello, Professor," Dawn says using Rogue's mouth but not her drawl, "my name's Dawn, not Carol." _You could be Marie, you know. I think they'd like Marie. I did._

Deep in her mind, sitting next to two graves, Rogue remembers the last time she allowed herself to be 'Marie' and looks down at the stone marked with that name, next to another marked 'Carol'. She remembers feeling helpless and terrified and resigned and knows that she will never be 'Marie' again. Marie is dead, killed by a girl named Carol and Carol is dead, killed by a girl named Rogue.

 _You need me,_ she had said, but what she meant was _I need you._


End file.
